Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
We were in a system that was hyper-aware of all the failures of everyone else but oblivious to its own. For several years I afterward, I would sit in the Community Church and mentally bad-mouth everything they were saying and doing. It took me, literally, years to begin to listen for God's voice. I was so used to listening to the ministry.
Of course Pastor Bob down at the Community Church also is self-contradictory, and misses points from scripture, and commits illogical faux pas, and so forth. But Pastor Bob doesn't try to pass himself off as Today's Paul, God's Oracle and sole Deputy either. Pastor Bob doesn't quarantine people, and split up their families, if they begin to read other sources, and raise alternatives.
There's plenty that needs adjustment. WL wouldn't have gotten a movement together if there were not people looking for alternatives to the status quo (likewise WN in China in 1925-35).
But like poem of the woman who swallowed the fly, the corrective measures may be worse than the original problem. We should at least consider that possibility.
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And that has been something of my experience too. Our ekklesia has a rich ministry, which I really enjoy and am greatly nourished whereby to pursue the Lord. But as I've traveled around and been to different locations and gatherings, at first I had a critical mind toward them. However I began to see how this really killed the fellowship. So instead, when I visited another group I began to just thank the Lord for them, the way they did things and their speaking. When I laid aside the old criticisms (i.e., "put off the old man"), then I was able to enjoy oneness and experience something of Christ with these different ones.
And it seems like a fair comparison of pastor Bob and WL. We also had someone here 20 years ago who was ruling families with a heavy hand and there were many broken marriages, but thankfully the Lord purged that person out.
And I think your last point was good too - yes, if things hadn't have been degraded in Christendom, then WL wouldn't have been able to offer an alternative. I do believe the enjoyment of Christ was strong in the LC in the 1960s to perhaps the mid-1970s. But a number of things suppressed that, not the least of which was the extreme exclusivity.